infantilize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to keep in or reduce to an infantile state.
-
to treat or regard as infantile or immature.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of infantilize
1940–45; infantile + -ize, or by back formation from infantilization
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Public policy shouldn’t infantilize people simply because minors might misuse a product.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 15, 2025
We are seeing adult women who aggressively reject society's efforts to infantilize them.
From Salon ● Jan. 3, 2024
Efforts to create these “safe spaces” seemed, to me, to infantilize students by insulating them from speech they found the least bit upsetting.
From New York Times ● Apr. 7, 2022
Nor am I against the idea of confronting children with something genuinely dark and audacious, especially given how quick the film industry usually is to infantilize its youngest consumers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2019
I don’t want to infantilize my own mother, but seeing her struggle with this and asking questions like “Why would my dad do this?” are hard for me to react to.
From Slate ● Oct. 25, 2018
The story she has told him about his father’s death serves to keep him an infantilized, dependent man-child.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 19, 2023
Your shared duty is to keep the friendship from getting so out of balance that you feel infantilized.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 12, 2022
You’re being put in a ridiculous position, not because talking to younger relatives is inherently demeaning, but because you’re being singled out and infantilized simply because you’re not married.
From Slate ● Mar. 1, 2021
That song makes me feel like I’m infantilized or something.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 9, 2020
When grown men are infantilized, most don’t take to it nicely.
From "Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing" by Ted Conover
Family systems are, by design, infantilizing to the youngest members, and that hierarchy can persist for both parents and their children, regardless of how much money anyone earns.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 7, 2026
His “gruff” father had little time for such infantilizing obeisance and would resist as best he could.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
“Elderly female action star” is a cute premise, but Margolin makes the most of it without infantilizing his heroine or otherwise resorting to lowest common denominator humor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 20, 2024
It may seem weird, even infantilizing, for so many women to refer to themselves as such, but this linguistic trend isn't a step back for feminism — it's a reclamation of girlhood.
From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2023
Meanwhile, it would be infantilizing to say that retail investors need to be saved from themselves, aren’t smart enough to use apps like Robinhood safely, and would be better off paying commissions.
From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2022
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
